Have you ever been looking for something on Google Maps, only to find your favorite restaurant mislabeled, or an excellent hole-in-the-wall bookstore completely missing? Google users in other parts of the world have been using a tool called Google Map Maker in order to add roads, schools, businesses, and more to Google's mapping database, and now US users are being allowed in on the fun.

According to a post on the official Google Blog, users in the US can not only add descriptions to businesses or fix errors, they can also add bike lanes or entire buildings. Google then reviews each contribution for accuracy, and if they are approved, they will appear in Google Maps "within minutes." (Google allows other users to review edits as well, helping to expedite the process. In a way, it's a bit like a wiki version of Google Maps.)

That's just the basic feature set that has been available to more than 180 other countries for some time. Google also announced that it's adding some new features to the Map Maker, including the ability to use Street View within Map Maker so you can be as accurate as possible with your edits. You can also use satellite view, which is especially helpful for adding accurate roads or pathways.

In my short time playing with Google Map Maker here in Chicago, I already managed to approve someone's edits regarding a club that has been closed, change a friend's address from a restaurant to an apartment building, and map out a few bike paths. Map Maker did toss me a few errors when I was navigating around, though—they went away after refresh—so it seems that Google might still be catching up to the influx of new users.

Hey Jacqui, do you know if you can adjust the address numbering on roads using these tools? I work at a business that's kind of outside of town. If someone Googles our street address, it picks a point thats about a mile and a half too close to town, and we've been looking for a way to adjust that.

Google then reviews each contribution for accuracy, and if they are approved, they will appear in Google Maps "within minutes." (Google allows other users to review edits as well, helping to expedite the process. In a way, it's a bit like a wiki version of Google Maps.)

Why, pray tell, would I want to lock my data up in Google's silo where it may or may not persist, rather than contribute to OpenStreetMap?

And the two are somehow mutually exclusive such that you can only contribute to one and not the other? Brilliant. I don't know, maybe for the same reason that people make software for both Windows OS and Mac OS. Because you hit a wider variety of people. But if you want to hit only a niche market of people that are using OpenStreetMap and have the majority "heathen unwashed masses" that use Google Maps not find your information, your loss.

I'm tired of the extremism in all forms of life now days. Two things can, in fact, exist together. They satisfy different client bases. Please stop with all the arrogance tied to just one side of a particular technology.

...And the two are somehow mutually exclusive such that you can only contribute to one and not the other?...I'm tired of the extremism in all forms of life now days. Two things can, in fact, exist together...

With the bike paths can you add outside of roads? Like adding in paths through local parks for example? My local singletracks are official and laid out by the conservation society but the map they have sucks. I would love to make a more detailed version.

What a terribly awful idea. I can understand maybe trusting the public with map markers and whether something is still there or not but drawing roads? There's no way people know enough about drawing features accurately to be trusted with something like that. This is why a good GIS will never be replaced by the Hive, because people are stupid and cannot think spatially.

What a terribly awful idea. I can understand maybe trusting the public with map markers and whether something is still there or not but drawing roads? There's no way people know enough about drawing features accurately to be trusted with something like that.

I would disagree. There is enough data to be corrected, like obvious roads, POI's, and other map data that can be crowdsourced and verified.

I contribute to both, I do find somethings about google mapmaker to be kind of annoying, the street view always pops up and often times the pointer is in the completely wrong location, and I just want to move it so it's right!

Edit: Oooo looks like Open map got a new editer since I was last there, cool!

Edit2: I am reminded of my biggest complaint about openmaps, you can't click on the locations to get more information once they are on the map.

What a terribly awful idea. I can understand maybe trusting the public with map markers and whether something is still there or not but drawing roads? There's no way people know enough about drawing features accurately to be trusted with something like that. This is why a good GIS will never be replaced by the Hive, because people are stupid and cannot think spatially.

Maybe I'm wrong on this, but I'm thinking that most of the people submitting actual roads are either map nerds or highly familiar with the road they are adding. Most people are just gonna do landmarks. I do think that the address correction would be nice. Google is often way off compared to even Bing. Get outside of town, and Google can be off by almost a mile.

Why, pray tell, would I want to lock my data up in Google's silo where it may or may not persist, rather than contribute to OpenStreetMap?

And the two are somehow mutually exclusive such that you can only contribute to one and not the other? Brilliant.

Personally, I have a limited amount of time to spend on mapping. Why, again, would I contribute to a closed silo of data rather than one where people can download literally the entire map and do whatever they like with it? If Google wants to lock up my effort, they can pay me. If they begin distributing user edits under a free license, I'd be much more inclined to expend effort on improving their map. OSM is pretty darn good already. Google has more POIs, though. I'm working to change that in my area.

And you'd be surprised at how many people use programs that use OSM as a backend and that 14,295 unique users have edited the map in the last month. It's not really possible to compile stats on how many use the map, since people like Mapquest and CloudMade keep their own copy of the planet file and generate their own tiles from the data.

With the bike paths can you add outside of roads? Like adding in paths through local parks for example? My local singletracks are official and laid out by the conservation society but the map they have sucks. I would love to make a more detailed version.

Yes you can. When you select the icon to draw a line, Trail/Path is one of the options. You can then draw the line wherever you want.

With the bike paths can you add outside of roads? Like adding in paths through local parks for example? My local singletracks are official and laid out by the conservation society but the map they have sucks. I would love to make a more detailed version.

Yes, you can. I have already started doing this for the local MTB trails. At points its hard to see the trail on the satellite image, but I just cross reference my Garmin results for the correct path.

ElectricBlue wrote:

What a terribly awful idea. I can understand maybe trusting the public with map markers and whether something is still there or not but drawing roads? There's no way people know enough about drawing features accurately to be trusted with something like that. This is why a good GIS will never be replaced by the Hive, because people are stupid and cannot think spatially.

Its not that hard to trace the satelite image of the road to layout its location. That level of accuracy is good enough for this type of mapping. Google will never be an accurate GIS. (Besides, after working with GIS data over the past 10 years, I can tell you that "accurate GIS" is a complete oxymoron)

Then contribute to the project of your choice. Other people might have more time available, and thus contribute to more than one. It's really not that difficult, conceptually.

I don't think anyone said it was impossible to contribute to both. I'm just saying that in an either-or situation, OSM is the better place to deposit your data. Google could, after all, give Maps the ignomanious end recently outlined for Video.

I use Google Maps for most of my own navigation needs, but I contribute to OSM occasionally and use OpenMaps on my iPod/iPad when I'm travelling out of the country. (Love the ability to pre-load hi-res maps of the whole city, then use them while I'm off-line.)

Of course everybody is free to contribute to (and use) the mapping project(s) of their choice. It's good to see that Google is opening up to user contributions in the US. And I agree it would be nice if they made those contributions freely available. But my biggest complaint about the article, and I think the reason all the OSM fans have gotten their shorts in such a bunch in the comments, is that by omitting any mention of such obvious prior art, the author frankly makes it sound as if Google invented the idea of crowd-sourcing maps. Give credit where credit is due.

My biggest complaint with Google Maps has been that when you're looking for a business that's in a large shopping center complex, GMaps will only show you their street address and put a marker on the street. When you're in the middle of the huge shopping complex, the street address is useless, because you know the business is somewhere in the pathways inside that block.

I've heard that OpenStreetMaps can actually point physical locations, regardless of being on the street or not.

My biggest complaint with Google Maps has been that when you're looking for a business that's in a large shopping center complex, GMaps will only show you their street address and put a marker on the street. When you're in the middle of the huge shopping complex, the street address is useless, because you know the business is somewhere in the pathways inside that block.

I've heard that OpenStreetMaps can actually point physical locations, regardless of being on the street or not.

Nokia was supposedly working on a in-building location tracking system. Complete with radio points that stores and such could install for the phone to find.

Where google maps tends to be off in my town is that directions often mark state "highways" routed through city streets with traffic lights as the fastest route, rather than the nearby interstate "freeways". The directions and travel times end up being a joke that anyone who knows the town would laugh at. It's been that way for years now. The obvious solution would be to use real speed limits, which could easily have been obtained from their StreetView project, rather than dumb ass guesses. Since they apparently didn't think of that, is there any way to correct them?

The only thing that rankles a bit is having a company with a multi-kajillion-dollar market cap ask people to make contributions to their data without compensation...unless you have a business that would benefit from having the location corrected. On the other hand, I've certainly taken advantage of the Google Maps APIs and charged customers for mashups. Also, it occurs to me this may be a way for a group I work with to get Google to publish all our open-space trails.

The only thing that rankles a bit is having a company with a multi-kajillion-dollar market cap ask people to make contributions to their data without compensation...unless you have a business that would benefit from having the location corrected. On the other hand, I've certainly taken advantage of the Google Maps APIs and charged customers for mashups.

I'm all for open (and free) map data, since almost all of it is pubic information anyway. And I would be willing to bet that crowd-sourced map data may ultimately win the day at some point in the future, a la Wikipedia.

But damn, I have to admit that Google Maps has been a hell of a public resource over the years. So on balance, I suspect most people have gotten far more out of it than they have put in. In that regard I don't begrudge them getting volunteer help, at least for now.

Why, pray tell, would I want to lock my data up in Google's silo where it may or may not persist, rather than contribute to OpenStreetMap?

Not only do I fully agree with the above, but I'm surprised by the subsequent bashing below.

Are you really unaware Openstreetmap will have done to private mapping, within months not years from now, what Wikipedia did to all other encyclopedias?

I can tell you my next GPS will definitely be OSM-based. Plenty of applications already do turn-by-turn guidance with OSM maps, and I'm definitely ready to invest twice as much if needed, would it be just for the immense pleasure of getting rid of the encrypted-paying-catastrophically-slow map upgrades on one side, and of Google monopoly on the other.

If in addition this could be on a non-monopoly system too (blackberry playbook?) it'd be not only perfect, but just: over.Like in "the issue is over"